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Month: December 2009

When my plane finally took off on my way home last week, a blizzard nipping at the heels of our jet, I felt like the weight of the world was lifting off of my shoulders. That marathon of paper writing and packing was sinking down to earth like a mere wisp of a memory, and I was flying far away from Columbia during finals week. I happily turned to my private TV screen to melt my brain a little, and settled on watching Elf, which I love(d). I don’t know what’s happening to me, but I’ve been finding it harder and harder to watch any sort of TV show or movie without being wholly disgusted by how drenched in heteronormativity basically everything is. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m getting older or more radical or what, but it’s getting more and more difficult to ignore. Anyway, I was doing my best to turn a blind eye toward the straight couples and the stay-at-home moms, and tried instead to focus on Will Ferrell in an elf costume. Then came the song…

The holiday season is approaching. You ladies with boyfriends are going to have a great time. But for us single gals, Christmas only highlights how miserable and incomplete we are without boyfriends. I know, it’s so hard! Try not to kill yourself on New Year’s Eve when you have no one to kiss. I hope your mom at least sends you a present. And make your New Year’s resolutions QUICKLY. 2010: the year you finally find your future husband! You could also probably stand to lose a few pounds. Just saying. Anyway, to expedite the process of finding a man to support you and make you happy, here is a list of tips to help you sad singletons. They’re from 1938, but they are STILL RELEVANT.

Under the new abortion provisions, states can opt out of allowing plans to cover abortion in the insurance exchanges the bill would set up. The exchanges are designed to serve individuals who lack coverage through their jobs, with most receiving federal subsidies to buy insurance. Enrollees in plans that cover abortion procedures would pay with separate checks — one for abortion, one for any other health-care services.

I will be taking my anger over this out in the form of a snowball fight with my roommates – sorry, Lianna and Sam.

So, have y’all been watching Jersey Shore? I have. Full disclosure: I LOVE IT. Really. These people are crazy but actually kind of loveable (except for some of them). Anyway, I’m not just blogging about how much I’ve been enjoying this show. I finally got around to watching last night’s episode. Some of you might know about the controversy over it. What happened was, Nicole (affectionately known as Snooki), got punched in a bar. This clip, which MTV used over and over again to promote the show, was hard to watch, mostly because it was a clean shot right to the face–not to mention it was a huge male gym teacher punching a girl who’s shorter than five feet. Anyway, there was a huge uproar over MTV showing the footage, and it turned into a whole discussion about violence against women. Which, you know, yeah. That’s a problem. But I was sort of surprised at my own reaction. I hadn’t really thought about it as gendered violence–they were yelling at each other about a stolen drink, and got into a bar fight. The show featured another bar fight a few episodes ago. But suddenly there was all this uproar, like I said, about violence against women. And I’ve been thinking about it, but I still haven’t really decided how I feel. Here’s what I know: MTV pulled the clip from the broadcast, but only after using it excessively to promote the episode. And you can see the footage pretty much anywhere on the internet–I won’t link to it, but if you want to see it, it’s out there. MTV was obviously not on top of its game on this one–pretending like they had no idea it would be controversial and announcing last minute that they were pulling it. Yeah, okay MTV. They also put a screen shot at the end with a link to a website about violence against women and said “Violence against women in any form is a crime.”

The thing is, like, isn’t violence against ANYONE a crime? I just keep coming back to the fact that the reason this clip was so controversial and the first bar fight wasn’t is because one of them was against a defenseless woman and one of them was against a man. Don’t get me wrong, there are blah blah blah connotations gender la la but the reason this was so upsetting to me was because of her size, not her gender. I don’t know. HOW OFFENSIVE AM I? Anyone else watch it?

I have a paper due yesterday, and so I’ve been busying myself not writing it. I think professors can get too haughty, having every one of their students turning in things when they demand. I like to help keep a check on that.

Today’s piece is “how pedophilia lost its cool.” Anyway, it’s quick and it’s got everything you want from a blog piece: a swanky graphic, a provocative topic, a shout-out to NAMBLA, and a link to an article entitled, “Mr. Ed is Still Funny.”

I will try to write more on this when I have time to cry and scream with appropriate fervor, but when I tried that yesterday in the library, everyone got angry.

Oral Roberts (yep, that one) died yesterday at the age of 91, proving that only the good die young.

Queerty hasthe. best. video. i have heard in years. I take pleasure in the simple things in life – a good whiskey, a crossword, and evangelicals talking about sex (even better if it’s queer sex). I don’t want to spoil it for you, but you’ll probably be disappointed if you have a lot of penis-in-nose sex.